Keeping Score
by clevermycroft
Summary: Lestrade is sick of coming second best.


**Keeping Score**

It was Thursday. The sun had set at 7:53 PM as D.I Gregory Lestrade was busy sorting through the pile of case requests stacked precociously on his desk, with his back to the window. As far as Thursdays go, it hadn't been a bad one for Greg. Upon arriving at the Yard that morning, he'd been greeted by a double homicide report of two young college girls in Camden, a frustrated Sergeant Donovan and an overly excited Sherlock Holmes.

By midmorning they'd interviewed the suspects and by lunch Sherlock had figured out the neighbour's aunt had committed the bloody crime because of the fact she was wearing a turtleneck jumper. There was a slight hic-up in the arrest proceedings when the old bird tried to do a runner, but Doctor Watson managed to rugby tackle her before she was out the door.

"For a small bloke he's powerful, isn't he?" Lestrade said to no-one in particular.

Sherlock smirked. "You've no idea."

Choosing to ignore this, Lestrade booked the woman and was back at the station by three that afternoon.

After that Greg's memory became a blur of paperwork, inquiries and more paperwork. No matter how many pieces of paper he read, signed and filed, the pile didn't seem to get any smaller.

At eight o'clock exactly, Lestrade's desk phone rang.

"That'll be the freak," Donovan said warningly, dropping four new case files in front of him. "He probably wants to know if we've found his victims yet."

Greg rolled his eyes. "Don't you have some work to do?" he asked pointedly.

Sally pulled a face and quitted the room looking sour. Greg sighed. The phone was still shouting for his attention.

He answered on the fifth ring.

"Detective Inspector Lestrade," Greg grumbled into the receiver.

"I've not caught you at a bad time, have I?" _Mycroft's voice said and Lestrade could hear the smirk laced through his tone, like embroidery on silk. _

_Greg smiled and glanced at the door to make sure no-one was lurking around eavesdropping. "It's always a bad time when you ring," he replied, stretching his arms behind his head. "Can I help you?"_

_"I was just calling to enquire about your plans for this evening."_

_"I have some, if that's what you're getting at."_

_"Ah," Mycroft sighed, sounding amused. "Might I pry further as to ask what you'll be doing?"_

_"Dinner, dancing, perhaps moonlit stroll along the beach. You know, just the usual lark." _

_Mycroft laughed. "Sounds delightful," he said. "I'll see you in half an hour?"_

_At that moment Sally came in with yet another freshly photocopied pile of filing to be done._

_Lestrade cleared his throat._

_"Yes, sir, that shouldn't be a problem," he said casually._

_Mycroft just made a noise like a smile and the line went dead._

_Lestrade wasn't sure how long he and the older Holmes brother had been... involved. He wasn't even sure that was the right term for their situation. All he knew was every Thursday at eight thirty precisely, a black Rolls Royce pulled up in front of the Yard and Mycroft Holmes would unfold himself out on to the pavement, umbrella in hand and suit perfectly pressed, and invite Greg to come for a drive._

_In the beginning they had only met to discuss Sherlock. What he was doing, how he was doing, what cases he was interested in, what cases he wasn't interested in and so on. They would drive around town for exactly fifteen minutes discuss Mycroft's little brother and then Lestrade was to be dropped at his flat and the bureaucrat disappeared for a week. But then one Thursday evening, Mycroft decided he was peckish. _

_"I apologise," he said as they pulled up outside a posh looking Italian place. "I've been on a diet, but I don't think I can stand eating rabbit food tonight. You'll join me, won't you?"_

_Greg nodded and followed him inside, eyeing the exquisitely lean man up and down._

_ "What're you on a diet for?" he asked. "I'd slap some sense into you, but I'm worried you'll break in half."_

_A flush of colour graced Mycroft's cheek and he didn't seem to be able to stop smiling._

_Greg spent the next half an hour shuffling papers about on his desk with no real purpose other than to look busy. His eyes kept straying to the clock above the door, which didn't appear to be moving at all despite the annoying ticking noise it kept making. It was the longest half hour of his life._

_Eventually he gave up trying to look productive and pulled on his coat. He stretched again, his back cracking with relief at not being hunched over his desk any longer, and looked out the window. Raindrops the size of golf balls smattered the glass through the security screening. Mycroft would want to stay in if it was drizzly. Greg smiled and silently thanked weather. _

_His phone beeped from the pocket of his coat._

_I'm waiting in the car.  
>I'd come in and fetch you<br>but I prefer to avoid the weather._

_MH_

_"This coming from a man who accessorises with an umbrella," Greg mumbled, slipped his phone back in his pocket and left his office, closing the door firmly behind him. With a brief wave goodbye to Sally, who bared her teeth back at him in a knowing smile, he dashed out of the station and fell into a familiar, black __Rolls__-__Royce._

_Lestrade had been right in his prediction. Mycroft refused to go out. He complained about his shoes getting wet, dropping the names of several influential politicians, including the President of the United States, in the process. Greg pretended to sulk and Mycroft pretended to believe him. The chauffer was ordered to drive around the city twice._

_Greg lost track of time then._

_The next thing he knew he was stretched out on his stomach in Mycroft's bed, half asleep with one hand propping his chin up and the other slung low around the politician's skinny waist. Mycroft was laying on his back, staring up at the canopy above him, his blue eyes shining in the dark. He traced a path lightly up and down Greg's arm with his fingertips. Neither of them spoke. Just lay in the darkness of Mycroft's bedroom listening to of the rain outside and the sound of each other breathing._

_Needless to say, it was wonderful._

Or, it was wonderful, until Mycroft's Blackberry started buzzing on the nightstand. The politician automatically made to pick it up, but Greg stopped him.

"Leave it," he groaned sleepily, tightening his grip around Mycroft, pinning the government official's arms to his side and burying his face in the crook of Mycroft's neck.

"It could be important," Mycroft said, eyeing the flashing mobile worriedly.

"It's half one in the morning," Greg mumbled into his shoulder. "Surely these political types realise even the most powerful man in government has to sleep. Ring them back tomorrow."

Mycroft just sighed in a pitying kind of way, sounding annoyingly like Sherlock. "By then we could have a war on our hands," he said softly, struggling to prise Greg's finger off his bicep.

"Please."

Somehow Mycroft managed to wrench an arm free and manoeuvre himself within reach of the bleeping phone. Greg gave up then. The battle was lost. The phone had won.

So that made the score... Work: 137, Lestrade: 0

With a sigh, Greg rolled on to his side and watched Mycroft's profile. The eerie blue light from the mobile's screen illuminated his face, casting shadows across his features and making his cheekbones alarmingly obvious. A loose stand of wavy hair was straying from his usually carefully groomed head and falling on his brow. It took all of Greg's willpower not to comb it back.

"Important?" he asked, trying to sound like he didn't really care.

"Very."

"Who is it?"

"I can't say."

"What's it about?"

"That, I'm afraid," Mycroft answered, standing up so gracefully it was like he was never sitting down, "is classified."

Completely absorbed in the phone in his hands, Mycroft made to quit the room without a second glance. Greg felt a pang in his chest, which was immediately repressed.

"Are you coming back at all?" he asked in a somewhat waspish tone. "Or am I falling asleep alone... again?"

For a moment Greg thought he was going to come back. Mycroft looked back at him, tilting his head like a curious child. It was a strange look and Greg wasn't sure he felt entirely comfortable with it. Like he was an interesting bacteria being inspected under a microscope. Greg wanted to look away, every cell in his brain was screaming at him to do so, but he didn't. He couldn't. He wouldn't.

The politician and the policeman stared at each other and it was so quiet, Greg could practically hear the cogs turning in Mycroft's brain.

But a second after his mobile rang loudly, shattering the silence like a brick through glass and, without hesitation, Mycroft answered.

"Ah, Prime Minster, how nice to hear from you..."

Greg's eyes followed the tall frame until it disappeared into the hallway snapping the door shut behind it. He sighed and punched his pillow.

"Work: 138," he muttered bitterly to himself, "Lestrade: 0."

The score tally had started the same evening Lestrade and Mycroft had first dined together. Sitting alone with Mycroft in a private dining room in an expensive restaurant, Greg had expected to feel uncomfortable and awkward. He had not expected the politician to have a sense of humour nor had he expected them to have anything in common other than the fact they were both well acquainted with Sherlock Holmes. He was pleasantly surprised.

Mycroft was in the middle of telling an amusing anecdote about the Prime Minister and colostomy bag over dessert when his mobile phone rang. He stopped speaking at once and his whole face changed. He went from Mycroft, the dry witted, dashing and generally perfect gentleman to M. Holmes, most powerful man on the face of the Earth, before Lestrade could blink.

M. Holmes took one look at the flashing screen of his Blackberry and every line on his face pressed deeper into his skin. M. Holmes looked much older than Mycroft.

"Excuse me," M. Holmes murmured and left the room in such a sweeping motion Lestrade didn't even see him go. Before he knew it he was sitting on his own, mashing what was left of the tiramisu on his plate with the back of his spoon.

_Work: 1, Lestrade: 0_

It was an unconscious thought to begin with. A little joke he told himself in his mind. He didn't know it would be a running joke until it was too late.

When Mycroft returned nearly an hour later, Greg was putting on his left shoe.

"What are you doing?" Lestrade could hear his eyebrows rising in his tone. He tried to ignore him, but the sound of his voice automatically made him glance up. Like always.

Mycroft stood in the doorway, his phone clasped tight in his right hand and his hair ruffled as if he'd been running his fingers through it repeatedly. His charcoal grey silk dressing gown was tied loosely around his waist, hanging open at the chest and revealing a delicious sliver of stomach that made Greg ache. He looked away quickly.

"I'm going home," he said briskly, jamming his heel into his rather battered leather shoes. "I was hoping to slip out while you were still on the phone. Didn't want to disturb you."

Greg could feel Mycroft tense even from across the room. He looped his shoelaces together to distract himself and stood up, clearing his throat. "I've got a busy day tomorrow," he said lamely, staring determinedly at the spot just above Mycroft's head. "I really should be off."

Mycroft smirked and placed the phone carefully on the mantle. "You're upset with me," he said.

"No," he said waspishly, so it was blatantly obvious he was.

"You're angry that I took the call."

"I'm not!"

"Then how do you explain, not only this sudden desire to leave and the strangled upward inflection of your voice, but also the fact that you're wearing your shoes on the wrong feet?"

Lestrade felt his fist clench at his sides as he fought the urge to leap across the room and throttle him. "Fashion statement," he said simply, folding his arms across his chest.

"I see," replied Mycroft annoyingly, "and I suppose wearing one's jumper inside-out is the latest craze?"

In that moment, Gregory Lestrade hated Mycroft Holmes more than he'd ever hated anyone in his life. It wasn't fair. None of this was fair. It wasn't fair that he always lost. It wasn't fair that Mycroft had this affect on him. And it definitely, definitely, wasn't fair that his jumper was inside-out.

"I'm not angry," Greg lied blatantly through gritted teeth, digging the heel of his left-shoed right foot into the carpet. "I'm tired."

Mycroft raised his eyebrows in that infuriatingly Holmesian way he did when he knew he was right. Greg glared at him.

For a while, they just looked at each other in their own special ways. Greg could practically feel the wrinkles around his eyes burrowing deeper. He could barely see Mycroft past his own anger and annoyance and the unfairness of the whole damn situation.

"I don't know what you want," Mycroft said so quietly Lestrade almost didn't hear him.

He blinked and the fog of rage cleared. He could see. Mycroft didn't look furious like Greg assumed he would. He looked haggard. Older and more tired than Greg had ever seen him. And sad. So very sad. Like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, but he only just realised how heavy it was.

"W-what?" Greg stammered.

"You are the most complicated man I've ever met in my whole life, Gregory," Mycroft told him, still speaking in that hushed whisper. "I can't read you. Every other person on this planet is so transparent, so simple, but you..." he drifted off, still staring at Greg in that beautiful yet unnerving way. "You I don't understand."

Lestrade didn't say anything. Not because he was still annoyed, but because there was a lump of guilt pressing against his Adam's apple. So even if he could think of anything to say the words wouldn't have been able to get out.

Mycroft didn't seem to notice Greg's silence. The politician's breathing was getting erratic as he started pacing the room, running his fingers through his already ruffled hair. Greg watched in a mixture of fear and wonder.

"What do you want from me?" Mycroft cried, finally stopping and addressing the detective directly. His eyes were wide, worried and pleading and they scanned Lestrade's face. "You are the single most frustrating human I have ever met in my life! I can't _read_ you, I have no idea how to make you happy. Just tell me what you want and I will move the stars to get it for you," his eyes suddenly lit up as if he'd just won a prize at a raffle. "Do you want me to quit my job?" Mycroft asked quietly. "Would that make you happy?"

Greg hesitated. He imagined what life would be like if Mycroft didn't work for the government. There would be no late night phone calls, no more waking up alone, no more danger, no more worry. They could go on holiday, settle down, and live normally. He nearly said it, too. Greg knew one word from him and Mycroft would be back on his mobile in a flash to resign his post and sever all ties with the FBI, CIA and even that position he held at NASA.

But as lovely as all that sounded, Greg knew along with it would come the collapse of the state of the planet as they knew it and a bored and unhappy Mycroft.

Greg thought he'd be able to handle the crumbling of the government, but to see Mycroft unhappy... the very idea nearly killed him.

"No," he said softly. "No, I don't want that."

"Then what do you want?" Mycroft shouted, actually shouted. Lestrade hadn't known the politician's voice was able to amplify above a loud whisper. "Tell me what you want, Gregory, and I will find it. I'll do anything, just tell me what you want."

Something snapped. Or clicked. Or a weird mixture of both. It didn't matter how it happened, but at that moment, Gregory Lestrade knew what he wanted.

"I just want five minutes!" he heard himself practically scream. "Just five minutes where I can just be with you. Five minutes where I don't have to share you with your phone, or the Prime Minister or the bloody UN! Just five fucking minutes where we can just be... _us._"

He stopped and tried to catch his breath and get his head around what he'd just said. He looked up at Mycroft only to find the ridiculously skinny man already staring at him. He swallowed hard and made himself keep eye contact. _"_I just want you," he murmured. "For five minutes. That's all. Then you can go back to saving the world."

As he realised just how embarrassing and clingy he'd just sounded, Greg became very interested in his shoes. They were still on the wrong feet. And his jumper was still inside out. He could feel Mycroft's eyes boring into him and it was so suffocatingly awkward Greg wanted nothing more than for the cream coloured carpet to swallow him up and smother him.

"Look," Lestrade said, trying to break the horrible silence, "I'm just gonna go. I don't think-"

Before he could finish, Mycroft was in front of him. Thin hands were in his hair and even thinner lips were covering his mouth. He held Greg's face in his hands and worked diligently on his mouth, sucking softly at his lower lip so he purred. Greg's brain whirled with relief, as he clutched at Mycroft's waist and kissed him back hungrily.

The Blackberry sounded from its place on the mantel. Both men paused, breathing heavily, and looked at each other. Mycroft was so close to him, Greg's eyes blurred so all he could see was smudge of blue-grey where the politician's eyes should've have been. "It might be important," he whispered, gripping the folds of Mycroft's bathrobe.

The blue-grey smudges shifted to glance at the phone.

"They can wait five minutes," Mycroft chuckled into Greg's mouth, tracing the waistband of his trousers with his long fingers.

Lestrade bit his lip. "I think I might need a bit longer, actually."

Mycroft's only reply was to make an amazing noise halfway between a whimper and a purr and capture Greg's lips once more.

_Work: 138, _Lestrade thought as they fell backwards on to the bed. _Lestrade: 1._


End file.
